Wednesday, October 13, 2010

continued

so i left dumas around 10:00 am and buzzed thru roadkill and tumbleweed central to the border at texline, tx.  kept a nice pace of 60 mph until 20 miles before texline where i road on grooved pavement to the border...not my favorite......the temperature was supposed to be in the 70s but i didn't get above 55 all the way to taos, nm...in texline i stopped for gas, hot coffee to warm up and to put on my thermals and winter gloves...that helped...i also finally got my music situated...i got a nice cheap pair of earbuds that lock the wind out so i can actually hear the music...also i decided to run my ipod directly to my charger oin the sidecar so i didn't have to worry about the battery...listening to dead kennedys through the cowboy towns was nice...i saw a few blue pick-ups...

nice to have the cameras going...had the helmet charged, new canon, and of course the trusty iphone...got to the border and took the obligatory photo of laru and sign, me & laru w/sign, and me, laru and a photo of my dad w/sign...it's one of the cooler state signs...two peppers, one green one red, on a yellow background with new mexico in blue i think...also saw a dead coyote on the side of the road just after the border...

blew through n.m. on hwy 56/412 until springer right at the hwy 25 jnct...the landscape started to change around here...got gas at a fina...when's the last time you saw a fina gas station...more of the 90 grade gas...it's like water...beef jerky and cashews, then on hwy 25 for 3 miles and back on a smaller road #58 that took me into cimarron, n.m....the road was a little rough but interesting with dips and curves and the massive rockies staring me down...i shot some helmet cam footage on this road into cimarron where there was a strip of median that had 5ft x 3ft portraits of notorious cowboys and other shady figures from the 19th century...pretty cool...

leaving cimarrron i got on hwy 64 that took me further into the mountains...helmet cam on the whole time through cimarrron canyon state park, ute park, eagle's nest where you could see baldy mountain (a 12,000 ft peak), thru carson national forest on windy roads that had me climbing in 2nd and 3rd gear.  coming down the into taos, n.m. i started thinking the elevation must be messing with my bike...because it was just hard to keep the bike over 50 going downhill into a head wind of only 5-10 mph...

last night i talked to the guys at ural n.w. and explained that this had occurred coming into the little elevation that the eastern and central panhandle of texas offered...more wind mind you but minimal elevation...they suggested a few things...clean out air filter (i did), check sidecar brake adjustment (i did and it was to tight and dragging), and check carb sync (i did and it was a little off, the right carb needed a little increase in the throttle)  when i left this morning i reconfigured the load and put the huge camera case INTO the sidecar...,thereby getting rid of the sail that caused my bike to drag so much...i knew it was dragging from this but not that much...i honestly didn't think it would fit in the sidecar and it doesn't really, but kind of...like i said, the whole first 75% of today was super smooth...fast (58-65 mph) no fighting the drag...the bike tracked straight without my trapezoids burning...nice ride...but at the end when i got a little higher, i started to have the same problem...the bike worked harder but better if i just left it in 3rd through 52-55 mph...but as soon as i shifted to 4th even on the flat it would bog down and lose speed to 45 mph...

mark and ben at ural nw said it could be the valves are tightened too much...that's all i have left to check, but it's out of my league...so maybe a shop, or better yet, i'll just keep on pushing until it drives me batty or i can't leave 2nd gear...

so now i'm in taos, n.m....and i'll tell you more about that tomorrow

time to relax

----jleep

dumas tx to taos nm

got to dumas tx (north-west of amarillo) on monday night...stayed thru this morning, had to wait for a package with my new camera and other cool stuff from looper...lounged all day in the room and reorganized my crap...keep expperimenting with random local type food places, hit or miss...a burger joint in town was more hit than miss...met a guy named george (skelly) here at the motel...he's riding a 1994 harley fxr (i think that's right)...really cool guy in his 60s...rode from massachusetts to dumas heading into colorado (just south of denver)...he's taking the harley to a friend who's never had the chance to buy a bike due to the needs of his family...skelly just got a new harley (road king?) in mass...skelly's self-appointed nickname refers to skeletor from he-man...it's appropriate because unfortunately skelly has lost lots of weight due to lung cancer...he's terminal and has decided to live the hell out of his last days...hence the new bike and the passing on the old to an old friend...he and talked quite a bit about life and such...heard about his family and he mine...skelly had the most positive outlook for facing down death...some people drop into a depression and sort of give up you know?  he can barely hold up his harley and he's out there giving em hell...i hope to have the same courage...nice to meet you skelly

if you want to contact him or hear of his story from him...

george "skelly" larkin
153neptune@comcast.net

Monday, October 11, 2010

more

thinking about seminole....particularly this one person who seemed like someone who was angry about everything around him or what he'd gone through...i don't know which, but there'd be these comments that made me feel that i fell in the category of his hated much, and then there'd be these moments that seemed like we were on the same page...i realized that when we seemed to bond was when i also was wrapped up in the misery of either the moment or the thought of when something tragic had occurred to me....

just now i read something that relates and makes sense but hopefully isn't too much of a stretch or contrived...."things outside himself he found banal and not worth his attention....one result of democracy was a concentration of each man's attention upon himself..."

for some people it's never really good enough and it's okay....this is something i know, but it's magnified when you're on the road and that's the thought process you get to be surrounded by for what seems like an endless amount of time


---jleep 

just thinking

about early oklahoma....i've heard of and experienced road hypnosis (in my 64 impala after 9 hours or so driving the ascent of the cascades seemed like a descent)...think that's what it's called....but a couple days ago, for the entire day, i felt like i was playing a motorcycle video game...it seemed as though i was riding a stationary bike that had all of the right sounds but didn't move...rather the landscape in front of me got bigger, as though it was a green screen, but not that fancy, more like a bad b-movie where it's obvious the scene in front of or behind the actors is fake...weird huh?

continued

last night, after thegood/bad day, i had to leave the road early due to a major thunderstorm that had golfball-sized hail and lightening...i got maybe 190 miles from o.k. city...and today the same to dumas, tx...because this is the only place on my route to the national parks where i could find a fedex place...

today was schizo windy...mainly w/nw but then random gusts from other directions would happen.  laru did an average of 40 mph today...some places going downhill i was slowed down to 48 mph by the extreme winds...checked the news just now and apparently there were 30-40 mph gusts and a steady 15-20 mph head wind...i think i'm going sdtraight into the wind from here on out more or less...something i kind of counted on, but again didn't allot enough time for it....minutes are like gold out here...expecting to be on the cali coast by sat/sun....

today's ride was probably the sketchiest...i was moved all over the road and had to pay atttention with a death grip at all times...you can't fight it, but you have to be aware when deciding how to countersteer...the hack came off the ground a few times...goggles covered in bug shit and lots of roadkill (fucking nasty skunks, 'dilla, deer, etc...)

so after what was visually pretty boring terrain, although i can feel the rockies coming, but not a boring day...i'm catching up on this and will try to do better wioth the blog...since chris left and i got my dad's ashes (plus what would have been his recent birthday) i've just kind of been "fuck it" you know?  but i'm coming back around and am planning on doing it again in spring, but in reverse....i have a nice coffe-table book idea, i think...it could be more...but now that i know i and laru can do it, it'll happen again....i've learned some lessons and will be that much more ready to anticipate some of the roadblocks that have confronted me thus far...

showered, laundered, blogged, drunked...and ready to take on the gnarly desert and mountains the next few days...i love you family and friends

i'll try and get some pics up soon

----jleep

monday night oct ?

so i'm in dumas texas watching the jets vs vikings (not started yet because of thunderstorms or something)  geeeez come on let's see em play, only the people that deserve to be electrocuted will get electrocuted, right??!!  this will keep things rolling right along...

yesterday was horrible and great all at once.  i finally got to leave seminole, o.k. for o.k. city and snag some new rubber for laru yesterday.  i left the comfortable grasp of the oxford inn and its lounge after 6 days of home-sickness, boredom, booziness and too much mazzio's...i met some great people...my kind of people (i don't know if i'm exactly their type of people, but it worked out with no jail or black eyes)   thanks for the machete mike, and thanks to whomever played for playing round of drinks tag...nice mix of cowboys, bikers, vets, and all around blue-collar folks.

steve, at atomic brown scooters in o.k. city, hooked up a duro tire and a russian c-97 spare rubber (super big knobbies) for $75.  i switched out the tires while steve checked and corrected the alignment on the sidecar.  the bike's still pulling a little, but i have a new rear and sidecar tire....should get me to california.  Also, steve actually didn't have ant spare tires...he called a client that had requested steve put on some new tires among other things for his 2006? gear-up...he told me on the phone sat., while i was in seminole, that he wouldn't even know when he could get tires until mon.  i was damn dissapointed after waiting around all week for them to open again...i assumed they would have plenty of tires, but, like most listed ural dealers, they're just getting into it and don't have much stock of anything ural related.  i don't know if i mentioned this already but they were closed due to the death of a close family member....sorry for your loss guys...back to super steve---he didn't want to leave me stranded so he called the customer with the 2006 gear-up and asked for his brand new spare tire rubber...the person graciously agreed (thanks!! whoever you are)...

so after an hour or so i took laru for a test drive, and she did fine...on a SUNDAY (you're the man steve) laru was up and running
...so i paid him and went to grab the camera to take the pics and some video before i left...no camera

no fucking canon t1i that has been the work horse throughout the trip...my yaschica 120 mm and 4x5 were where they needed to be, but no digi!!!!!!!  right when i got into o.k. city i got gas and had to use the restroom...the camera was under my sidecar cover and hidden from view...i never like to leave tyhe bike and since chris has left it's sorta been a worry...but nothing has occurred so far...i was in a somewhat "bad" neighborhood...bars on business windows, sketchy looking dudes that had been up all night most likely...but it wasn't like the southside of atlanta or chicago for that matter...nothing against those places, but i know not to be there at the wrong time...this was a sunday morning with the sun beaming down and there non-cracked out people milling around the outskirts of the city...

this is a massive hit to the trip...i can make a police report...but the memory card is the most valuable....photos from wilmington, n.c. saying bye to josh and family thru atlanta (joe and his family..my sister and receiving my dad's ashes)...every state line up until oklahoma that i shot with a picture of my dad and me since chris left our ritual....videos of scenery throughout the south...shot-gunning beer videos solo in those states....

so after reacting to the news with disbelief and later anger that came out with a nice and stupid punch to my extremely hard and large camera case, i've finally just let it be another part of the trip...

i'm taking photos and some video with my iphone and using the yashica more...also my photo project got a lucky a couple of times now...and the wonderful jen has just overnighted another digi

i'll be in dumas, tx until i pick up my fedex p[ackage tomorrow at 11:00 am or so...then it's off to taos, n.m. tomorrow

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

georgia thru oklahoma

a little more on georgia:

jenny thank you for meeting me...i love you sis...dad will like it around the parks of utah...rich, (my brother) i wished we could've met that day...but shit went down and i had to deal with it...you know how it is.  love you man...take care of yourself and i'll see you in spring...

i got to eat great bad food that fed my nostalgia...waffle house and krystals...i still need chick fil a and sonic...oh hyeah and steak and shake...but it's too late cause i'm in oklahoma now

i'm back

sorry for the delay of this post...after arriving in atlanta, ga.  chris left....i also received my father's ashes from my sister....these two changes in the middle of the trip (one expected and one not) kind of threw me off my game.  the south has been a blur...

chris and i left wilmington, n.c. in perfect time...they were just beginning to flood due to the incessant rain...10 inches fell in the24-36 hours we were there.  tuesday september 28th we left in the morning during the only lull in the storms...we hauled ass across south carolina and landed on the border of georgia, near augusta...we got a nice motel at the "carolina inn" and bombed to atlanta the next day...

an old friend of mine, joe, and his family put us up for the night....while i switched the sidecar and rear tire lloyd, joe's father, entertained us with stories and mary, joe's mother, hooked us up with wings for dinner.  i got to visit a few old friends from back in the day (15 yrs old to 20) while chris stayed in his tent at joe's house and read.

the next day while waiting for my sister to bring me some of my father's ashes chris tells me he's burnt and needs to attend to other affairs...he left that afternoon and i decided to stay at joe's another night to figure out my new game plan...

with decent rubber on the rear i took off in the morning friday october 1st...

thanks again to joe and his family...want to say goodluck in your lives to jason and his family and to johnny...thanks for the strong coffee lloyd, that got me cruising down the road...thanks and good luck to kevin and the rest of joe's friends for the coffee and talk....